Board Member in Spotlight pt. 3: Erkki Soini
“I find it very important that we assess how our activities have succeeded and what we can learn from previous experiences. It is essential that we utilise data in decision-making.”
Making use of data
We aim to make the Kuopio Health open innovation ecosystem a globally significant forum where aspects such as data, knowledge, artificial intelligence and effectiveness play an important role. We have great opportunities for utilising social and health care data: we have the Act on the Secondary Use of Social and Health Data, access to biobanks, and the readiness and right attitude to make an impact with data.
Naturally, I view the benefits of Kuopio Health through my own company, ESiOR Oy, which operates in the health economy sector. For us, the innovation ecosystem provides a good environment for networking and an opportunity to do things together and in a smarter way. I believe that this cooperation will enhance companies’ competitiveness, which is both necessary and also possible in this region.
Interest in concrete actions and contacts
Companies are interested in concrete services: events, forums, development projects and visits. Kuopio Health has been able to organise these, even despite the coronavirus outbreak. Creating international contacts is also important. Kuopio Health has been involved in organising, for instance, a webinar on the effectiveness and ethics of artificial intelligence provided together with national top names.
Overall, Kuopio Health provides companies a platform for carrying out projects or activities which an individual company could not implement alone due to time or competence limitations. The ecosystem has made us realise that there are other companies here that are dealing with the same challenges as us and that we can also find solutions to these by working together.
Learning and succeeding together
It has been interesting to notice that as rather competence-intensive company members in the ecosystem, our wishes for Kuopio Health are relatively similar. Our needs particularly highlight learning and increasing competence and succeeding together. I have not experienced any sort of rivalry in our ecosystem, which I find exceptional. Everyone is entrepreneurial and willing to make room for others’ entrepreneurial activities. If someone is successful, others are not disheartened by it.
I find it important that we have been able to attract effective resources here in the Kuopio region: Fimea and VTT. Both of these institutes work actively around areas of interest for healthcare companies. I believe that we need the Kuopio Health ecosystem and significant studying and work opportunities in the area to create sufficient credibility and attract more nationally and internationally significant players in the area.
Resolute activities generate impacts
I think effectiveness is the most important Kuopio Health value. After all, this covers all our other values: leadership, partnership and credibility. On the other hand, effectiveness can only be accomplished when all of these values are met.
We promote effectiveness by setting a clear target. I find it very important that we assess how our activities have succeeded and what we can learn from previous experiences. It is essential that we utilise data in decision-making. We sometimes make mistakes but these are not the end of the world; instead, we learn from them.
In daily life, effectiveness emerges through actions – more specifically from doing the right things. I am originally from Southern Ostrobothnia, where we talk about jämeryys, resoluteness. I think creating effectiveness requires resolute action: listening to clients, making sustainable decisions, and having a clearly solution-oriented approach. Daring to say that we know how to do things around here.
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